Podcast Preview
There are some times as a pastor where I have to stop and pinch myself. I look around at the people that gather together at our church, and my jaw hits the floor. I just marvel thinking about how much of a miracle it is that anyone is that anyone comes to Hope. I mean, why would someone come to this church? This is a church that doesn’t even have a building yet. We are meeting at the park for church this weekend! And you don’t come to this church because we boast the city’s most comprehensive programs. And you don’t come to this church because the pastor is wise or experienced or particularly charismatic.
And so I have to pinch myself as a pastor and recognize something: that people come to this church week after week for one reason- the Word of God. That’s it. It’s the Word of God. It’s full of God’s own words, it’s full of his heart, and it’s full of his power.
And why did God give you that word? So that you could know him- his saving love, his enduring mercy, his unending passion for saving people from their sins.
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
